OK, I admit it – I’ve been there before, a couple of times: Ordering something cool, just to let the initial sensation and motivation to actually do something cool with it quickly fade away…
The next chapter in this will (hopefully not) be this thing – introducing the DIY Meggy Jr RGB handheld:
Idea: put a couple of these babies next to each other, and have them show the current number of open Jira tickets.
Hmm might be a bit pricey though, at $52 per digit.
Maybe I will write a Chumby widget to display various stats.
It seems the space for 3D gaming via web browser plugins is getting more and more crowded.
Of course, Quake Live created a big buzz (and long waiting queues) when they launched, GarageGames started their InstantAction portal and technology a while ago, same goes for the Unity web player, and now Google released their O3D API.
Still, there is no standard format – I’m not the expert, but for me VRML seems to be dead for over a decade now… (though I just read that it morphed into X3D, but are people actually using that for more than experimental GUIs, like… games?)
Android development seems to gain momentum (whereas everybody already knows that iPhone development is TEH SEX, right? I still have to blog about the iPhone hype at GDC…).
If you are interested, T-Mobile Austria is holding the first Android Developers Day on May 7th, 2009 (including the obvious must-have Web2.0ish barcamp-part).
Apparently, some kids on AT.LANT.IS are some kind of embedded journalists, to test if our claims of a safe, moderated youth community are true:
VWI machte sich also zusammen mit einer 13jährigen Testspielerin daran, das Spiel bereits vorab zu testen und festzustellen, ob die hohen Erwartungen gerechtfertigt sein würden.
[...]
Ein Versuch unserer 13jährigen Testspielerin, die ICQ-Nummer eines anderen Kindes zu erfahren, brachte ihr zunächst eine Verwarnung ein. Da sie das schnell begriff, versuchte sie es heimlich über persönliche Nachrichten. Dieses Tricksen wurde mit einer 24-Stunden-Sperre bestraft – völlig zu Recht. Hintergrund dieses strengen Regelwerks ist es, dass AT.LANT.IS den vollständigen Schutz seiner kindlichen Spieler gewährleistet. Andere Internetplattformen wie die oben angeführten werden naturgemäß nicht überwacht. Deshalb wird jeder Versuch, über dieses System an die Realdaten von Kindern zu kommen, bestraft.
They even appreciated the strict profanity filter we use for chat messages and ingame mails – interesting.